Hometown: Pleasanton, CA
Major: Data Science
Domain Emphasis: Cognition
Data Science in Six words: collaborative, interdisciplinary, well-rounded, inclusive, social, ethical
Like many of her peers, Prathyusha found her first inspiration to pursue data science in the Data 8 classroom. Her dual interests in human behavior and computer science led her to hone in on cognition as a domain emphasis, and she considers the high level of customizability in the data science curriculum to be her favorite part of the major. “Because of the nature of my domain emphasis, data science helps me make better connections in the real world,” she said.
One such connection became clearest for Prathyusha in discussion for her Human Contexts and Ethics class, taught by Cathryn Carson. She recalls participating in a class-wide debate about classifying burgers and hotdogs as sandwiches, during which her professor emphasized the strong human tendency to create classifications. Something as simple and recognizable as food, she realized, has cross-curricular applications between machine learning and psychology. “I didn’t realize the importance of ethics until taking that class,” she said. “Ethics made me more socially conscious and aware of the world.”
After graduating from Berkeley in May, Prathyusha will be taking on work full-time as a software engineer. She credits her career preparedness to the wide variety of data science classes she could sample, as well as the deep social impact she was able to experience hands-on.